Coûter un bras
Meaning: To be outrageously expensive.
Language: French
Literally: To cost an arm
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: An import rather than a native French figure: it renders the English to cost an arm and a leg, and Canadian French sometimes extends it with et la moitié de l'autre. The English original is itself unsettled, spreading in the early 20th century. Proposals include the older to give one's right arm for something, military stripes worn on the sleeve and stripped away with a demotion, and portrait painters charging extra to include limbs — that last one widely repeated and poorly supported.
Equivalents in other languages
- Spanish: Costar un ojo de la cara — literally: To cost an eye from the face
- Finnish: Maksaa maltaita — literally: To cost malts
- English: To cost an arm and a leg — literally: To cost an arm and a leg
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More French idioms
- Chercher une aiguille dans une botte de foin — To search for something you have almost no chance of finding, because the thing is tiny a…
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- Bourré comme un coing — Completely drunk.
- Un chaud lapin — A man with a voracious appetite for sex.
- Faire devenir chèvre — To drive someone up the wall.
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